by Rachel Cord
Pre-order for 99¢ at Amazon
Publication date: November 15, 2023

I’ve known professional investigator Rachel Cord for nearly 20 years ever since she walked into my office one day and told me a story (see “Rachel & Me” blog 9/24/2017). As she drops in and out of my life at her whim, I’m never surprised—just appreciative—when she shows up or makes contact. She’s never said why she picked me to write her stories, but I’m glad she did, and I’m always hoping she’ll tell me another case or two she and her Confidential Investigations team completed and allow me to write about it.

In the meantime, I work on other projects like the two I’ve done with Iza Moreau in her Elodie Fontaine Mystery series (Billy's Legacy and Stormy Weather) or an upcoming fantasy sequel to my Eyes of Gaal short story.

Then recently, Rachel got in touch saying she’d written a novella based on an incident she’d found in her teen diary she hadn’t looked at in several decades and plans to publish as an ebook in November. “I was inspired by the Elodie mysteries Moreau and you wrote,” she said. “So I dug out my old diary wanting to remember bits of my past and this is what I came up with.”

The Teen and Young Adult mystery novella, Betty Jean & Me: The Package, will be published Nov. 15, and is available now for a special pre-order price of 99¢ at Amazon. It’s a taut mystery filled with juvenile angst and longing.

I wish Rachel well, good luck, and all that stuff with this new endeavor of hers, but I still want another Confidential Investigations tale to tell. Maybe next year.